Chapter Summaries

Tang Zhuyun treated the injured Prince of Jin and stayed with him while he recovered, then returned to the Tang home to check on Meng Yulan and the children. When Jiang Beihan arrived and Meng Yulan recognized his voice, Tang Zhuyun went with her to confront him.

• Tang Zhuyun removed a hidden weapon from the Prince of Jin without anesthetic, and he stayed in bed instead of attending court.
• The Prince of Jin warned Tang Zhuyun to keep his injury secret and ordered her to stay beside him while he recovered.
• Tang Zhuyun returned to the Tang home, where Meng Yulan told her about belongings and savings she had left behind and asked for advice about joining the family.
• Tang Zhuyun reassured Meng Yulan that she could manage the family's money and promised to defend her if Tang Baixin mistreated her.
• Jiang Beihan arrived at the Tang home, and Meng Yulan recognized his voice as Tang Zhuyun insisted on facing him with her.

Tang Zhuyun confronted Jiang Beihan and Yingxue when they demanded to see Meng Yulan, exposing their unfair accusations and defending Meng Yulan’s reputation. Tang Baixin asked Jiang Beihan to leave Meng Yulan in peace, and Meng Yulan listened from behind the door in tears.

• Meng Yulan decided not to go out because Tang Baixin had not asked her to and she did not want people to think she sought Jiang Beihan.
• Tang Zhuyun went outside and challenged Jiang Beihan, who demanded to see Meng Yulan and make her confront Yingxue.
• Tang Zhuyun denounced Jiang Beihan and Yingxue, pointing out that Meng Yulan had given Jiang Beihan two thousand taels and that a confrontation would only damage Meng Yulan’s reputation.
• The Prince of Jin called Tang Zhuyun back, interrupting her tirade, while Tang Baixin told Jiang Beihan to let Meng Yulan go and said he would not demand repayment of the two thousand taels.
• Meng Yulan cried behind the door as Xiu'er drove Jiang Beihan and Yingxue away with a broom.

Tang Zhuyun cooked for the Prince of Jin and received a monthly allowance while caring for his wound. After Xiu'er told her that Tang Baixin and Meng Yulan had become intimate, she complained that the Prince of Jin was no good in bed, only to realize he had overheard her.

• The Prince of Jin apologized to Jiang Beihan for Tang Zhuyun's behavior, and Jiang left with Yingxue.
• The Prince of Jin told Tang Zhuyun to cook, and she prepared food for him and sent half to Xiu'er.
• Tang Zhuyun asked to keep cooking for her father and Linlin, and the Prince of Jin ordered Song Jingyang to give her a hundred taels monthly; Song added ten taels for his meals.
• Tang Zhuyun learned that pig offal prices had risen because her cooking had made it popular, and she considered making new dishes.
• Xiu'er told Tang Zhuyun that Meng Yulan had gone into Tang Baixin's room undressed, then asked whether the Prince of Jin was good to sleep with.
• Tang Zhuyun said the Prince of Jin was no good in bed and joked about sending Xiu'er to Qingfeng, then spotted the Prince of Jin at the kitchen doorway.

Tang Zhuyun agreed to help the Prince of Jin conceal his wound before the imperial cuju match by making their affection conspicuous. At lunch, she encouraged Yanran to learn riding, and the Prince of Jin invited Tang Zhuyun and Yanran to join him and Linlin; the Seventh Prince interrupted as the Prince of Jin offered Tang Zhuyun a hand up onto a horse.

• The Prince of Jin confronted Tang Zhuyun for hiding that Meng Yulan liked Jiang Beihan, and Tang Zhuyun apologized when he offered her a chance to make amends.
• The Prince of Jin explained that people would inspect his wound after the Mid-Autumn cuju match and bathing at Mingze Lake, and Tang Zhuyun proposed publicly displaying his affection for her to distract them.
• Tang Zhuyun called Linlin, Yanran, and Meng Yulan to eat, then encouraged Yanran to learn useful skills instead of worrying about looking refined.
• The Prince of Jin invited Yanran to join Linlin's riding and archery lessons, and Tang Zhuyun agreed to come along.
• The Prince of Jin crouched to offer Tang Zhuyun his hands as a step onto Linlin's horse, but the Seventh Prince arrived and teased them.

Tang Zhuyun defended the Prince of Jin and his children when the Seventh Prince provoked them, then threw the Seventh Prince to the ground during their spar. The group rode on to the riding ground, where Tang Zhuyun asked to examine the Prince of Jin’s wound.

• The Seventh Prince taunted Tang Zhuyun and tried to provoke the Prince of Jin into sparring, hinting that the crown prince had been attacked after leaving his residence.
• The Seventh Prince insulted Yanran and Linlin, so Tang Zhuyun challenged him to a spar and threw him onto the ground with a shoulder throw.
• The Prince of Jin helped the dazed Seventh Prince up, then rode away with Tang Zhuyun and the children.
• At the riding ground, the Prince of Jin warned Tang Zhuyun that the Seventh Prince would hold a grudge, and she said she would not back down.
• Tang Zhuyun told the Prince of Jin to take off his clothes so she could check his wound, while Song Jingyang tried to slip away.

Tang Zhuyun treated the Prince of Jin after helping her throw the Seventh Prince down, then asked to be kept apart after his future marriage and questioned him about her brother’s case. The Prince of Jin kept his investigation secret, while their growing show of affection helped prepare their plan for the fifteenth day of the eighth month.

• Tang Zhuyun returned with her medicine chest and bandaged the Prince of Jin’s reopened wound after Song Jingyang helped check it.
• The Prince of Jin asked why Tang Zhuyun had stood up for him, and she asked to live in a secluded courtyard after he married his princess consort.
• Tang Zhuyun asked about her brother’s debt and the investigation into his case, but the Prince of Jin admitted he was keeping the findings from her.
• Tang Zhuyun examined the Prince of Jin’s itchy, painful leg, and Chang Zhi walked in and mistook the scene for an intimate encounter.
• Tang Zhuyun continued caring for the children and teaching the Prince of Jin how to act affectionate in public, while he brought her gifts and prepared to carry out their plan on the fifteenth day of the eighth month.

At the palace banquet, Tang Zhuyun’s prank on the Prince of Jin became a scandalous story that spread throughout the capital, making everyone believe their relationship was thriving. Her father and brother encouraged her to secure her place as the prince’s secondary consort, while she secretly remained determined to escape him.

• The Prince of Jin crushed the other princes’ team in cuju, winning eighteen to zero, while Tang Zhuyun and Yanran cheered him on.
• Tang Zhuyun stopped the Prince of Jin from entering Mingze Lake and revealed that she had painted a cleaver and warning on his chest after their supposed bedroom antics.
• The emperor laughed at the prank but docked the Prince of Jin three months’ salary and ordered Tang Zhuyun to copy Admonitions for Women a hundred times.
• Rumors about Tang Zhuyun and the Prince of Jin spread through the capital, and Tang Mingfan advised her to secure her position as secondary consort.
• Tang Baixin asked Tang Zhuyun for advice about his marriage, and she told him not to rush, while insisting to herself that her own relationship with the prince was fake.

Tang Zhuyun and Meng Yulan discussed Meng Yulan’s marriage, her role in raising Linlin, and Tang Zhuyun’s relationship with the Prince of Jin. After learning the Prince of Jin’s birthday was approaching, Tang Zhuyun wondered what gift to give him.

• Tang Zhuyun asked Meng Yulan about settling into the household, and Meng Yulan explained why she had gone to Tang Baixin and how he treated her as family.
• Meng Yulan worried about disciplining Linlin as his stepmother, and Tang Zhuyun encouraged her to act as his mother and take her place in the family.
• Tang Zhuyun and Meng Yulan joked that their relationships with their husbands were much the same, and Meng Yulan urged Tang Zhuyun to make the Prince of Jin a gift.
• Meng Yulan told Tang Zhuyun that Four Seas Tower had sent 120 taels of silver, and Tang Zhuyun proposed that they split it.
• Tang Baixin returned from the yamen, and Meng Yulan attended to him before Tang Zhuyun left them alone.
• Tang Zhuyun saw Wang Fu deliver birthday gifts from the emperor to the Prince of Jin and began considering what to give him herself.

Tang Zhuyun prepared a birthday feast for the Prince of Jin, but vanished while going out to buy garlic. She woke in a bandit hall, where her captors revealed they had abducted her because of the Prince of Jin and ordered her to write him a letter.

• Wang Fu delivered an imperial edict and said Madam Wang hoped to visit Tang Zhuyun.
• Tang Zhuyun learned the Prince of Jin's birthday was the next day and promised to prepare a banquet for him.
• Tang Zhuyun made longevity noodles and later cooked a birthday feast, then went out to buy garlic when she ran short.
• The Prince of Jin returned to find Tang Zhuyun missing, and he, Song Jingyang, Linlin, Yanran, the magistrate, and the Golden Scale Guard searched for her.
• More than a dozen attackers ambushed Tang Zhuyun with tendon-weakening powder and knocked her unconscious.
• Tang Zhuyun woke in a bandit hall, where the leader accused her of bewitching the Prince of Jin and ordered her to write him a letter.

Tang Zhuyun was abducted by a bandit leader who planned to trade her for her captured man, then locked in a woodshed with an injured prisoner. As she treated him and began removing his clothes to tend his lower wounds, she saw something that left her stunned.

• The bandit leader forced Tang Zhuyun to write a letter demanding that the Prince of Jin free her man in exchange for Tang Zhuyun.
• After Tang Zhuyun rewrote the letter, the bandit leader ordered her locked in a woodshed with an injured prisoner and warned the other bandits not to touch her.
• Tang Zhuyun found the prisoner badly wounded but alive, and he explained that the bandit leader had seized him because she had taken a fancy to him.
• Tang Zhuyun applied medicine to the prisoner's upper-body wounds and asked permission to treat the rest of him.
• Tang Zhuyun pulled down the prisoner's trousers and was shocked by what she saw.

Tang Zhuyun treated an injured woman imprisoned with her and learned the woman was the Prince of Jin’s concubine. The woman recovered enough to plan their escape, revealing that she knew the Prince of Jin well.

• Tang Zhuyun discovered her fellow prisoner was a badly injured woman and treated her wounds.
• Tang Zhuyun used silver needles to ease the effects of the Soft Bone Powder and shared her candy with the woman.
• Tang Zhuyun overheard guards reveal that the bandits had captured her to exchange for one of their own, while the woman was the Prince of Jin’s concubine.
• The woman recovered enough to sit up, watched the guards through the window, and asked Tang Zhuyun to recall the route from the main hall.
• The woman said they had to escape that night because her strength was fading, and promised to get Tang Zhuyun out because she and the Prince of Jin went back a long way.

Tang Zhuyun and an injured woman hid beneath an offering table until the Prince of Jin’s forces arrived and rescued them. The Prince of Jin recognized the woman, who claimed the person he knew was already dead, leaving Tang Zhuyun uncertain about their past.

• Tang Zhuyun and the woman hid beneath the main hall’s offering table while bandits searched for them.
• Second Chief Liu learned that the two women had escaped and ordered his men to flee as the Prince of Jin attacked.
• Tang Zhuyun came out from beneath the table and clung to the Prince of Jin, who wrapped his cloak around her.
• The woman crawled out and knelt before the Prince of Jin, who asked why she was there.
• The woman denied being the person Song Jingyang recognized, and the Prince of Jin ordered Song Jingyang to capture the bandits.
• Chang Zhi arrived, relieved to find Tang Zhuyun safe, while she called the woman an old acquaintance of the Prince of Jin.

Tang Zhuyun was rescued from the bandits, and Second Chief Liu surrendered after offering information in exchange for her brothers’ safety. The Prince of Jin took Tang Zhuyun home with her reunited father and brother, while the other captives remained in custody.

• Second Chief Liu returned voluntarily and offered to share useful information if the Prince of Jin spared her brothers.
• Chang Zhi recognized Liu Shuangdao, and the Prince of Jin ordered Tang Zhuyun to repay her for bullying her; Tang Zhuyun showed him how Liu had touched her.
• The Prince of Jin ordered the search for the remaining bandits to continue and allowed Song Jingyang to take the kneeling woman along.
• The Prince of Jin rode Tang Zhuyun down the mountain, where they met Tang Mingfan and Tang Baixin.
• Tang Zhuyun reassured her father and brother that she was safe, and the Prince of Jin led them back home.

Tang Zhuyun returned safely to her family, who feared the scandal of her rescue would cost her place in the Prince of Jin's household. The Prince of Jin dismissed the incident as a routine bandit raid and ordered Tang Zhuyun to have the uneaten dishes reheated.

• Tang Zhuyun comforted Yanran and Linlin after they clung to her and cried over her return.
• Meng Yulan told Tang Zhuyun that Tang Mingfan and Tang Baixin had gone to plead with the Prince of Jin to let her return home.
• Tang Zhuyun overheard Tang Mingfan and Tang Baixin asking the Prince of Jin to release her from his household.
• Tang Zhuyun entered the study and asked whether they could pretend nothing had happened.
• The Prince of Jin declared that nothing had happened and said he had gone to wipe out bandits with his favorite concubine.
• The Prince of Jin said he was hungry and ordered Tang Zhuyun to have the uneaten dishes reheated.

Tang Zhuyun pleaded with the Prince of Jin to spare the woman rescued from the bandits, and he ordered her to serve Yanran and Tang Zhuyun. Tang Zhuyun named the woman Nanxing, leaving the Prince of Jin, Song Jingyang, and Nanxing startled.

• Tang Zhuyun learned that the woman rescued from the mountain was still kneeling in the woodshed and brought her food, though she refused to eat.
• After Tang Mingfan and the Prince of Jin left for court, Tang Zhuyun asked the Prince of Jin to spare the woman, explaining that she had helped Tang Zhuyun escape.
• The Prince of Jin agreed to spare the woman because Tang Zhuyun had treated her injuries and told her to protect Yanran from then on.
• The Prince of Jin ordered the woman to serve Tang Zhuyun as her mistress, and the woman accepted.
• Tang Zhuyun named the woman Nanxing, surprising the Prince of Jin, Song Jingyang, and Nanxing.

Tang Zhuyun welcomed Yanran and Linlin while Nanxing struggled to face the daughter she had been separated from. After Tang Mingfan encouraged Zhuyun to deal with Ruan Anruo, Zhuyun learned Ruan Anruo was spreading rumors about her and decided to take revenge herself.

• Tang Zhuyun tried to put Nanxing at ease, but Nanxing stayed formal and vowed to care for Yanran.
• Yanran and Linlin arrived, and Nanxing knelt before Yanran and tearfully greeted her; Yanran offered her collar as a reward for protecting Zhuyun.
• The Prince of Jin returned from court and said the emperor had docked him three months' salary for claiming he had taken his concubine to offer bandits amnesty.
• Chang Zhi brought meat and fish to thank the Prince of Jin, and Tang Mingfan visited Zhuyun to ask about her marriage and discuss the examination fraud case.
• Tang Mingfan suggested Zhuyun punish Ruan Anruo, and Zhuyun agreed after learning Ruan Anruo had spread rumors that bandits had violated her; she refused Nanxing's offer to handle it herself.

Tang Zhuyun tried to protect Yanran from the Prince of Jin’s demanding archery lessons after the child’s hands were rubbed raw. The Prince of Jin let Yanran stop practicing and took Linlin riding, where he asked about the boy’s future plans.

• The Prince of Jin returned and asked whether Linlin and Yanran had completed their archery practice; Linlin admitted that he had finished Yanran’s task for her.
• Tang Zhuyun learned that Yanran wanted to avoid archery and feared disappointing her father, but she refused to let Yanran pretend to be sick.
• Linlin pleaded with the Prince of Jin to spare Yanran because her hands hurt and she wanted to embroider him a New Year’s pouch.
• The Prince of Jin told Yanran he would not force her to practice anymore, then took Linlin riding while Yanran went with Tang Zhuyun to make candied skewers.
• The Prince of Jin watched Linlin ride and asked what he planned to do in the future; Linlin said he would study hard and come first in the imperial examinations.

The Prince of Jin questioned Linlin about his future and considered raising him to become Yanran’s live-in husband, while Linlin worried that the prince might mistreat Tang Zhuyun. Afterward, Tang Zhuyun speculated about the prince’s romantic preferences, then heard Ruan Anruo had returned and set off with Xiu'er.

• The Prince of Jin asked Linlin what he would do after placing first in the imperial examination, and Linlin said he wanted to honor his ancestors and provide for Tang Zhuyun.
• Linlin asked the Prince of Jin not to make things difficult for Tang Zhuyun, and the prince promised he would not dwell on the past or mistreat her.
• The Prince of Jin considered raising Linlin to become Yanran’s live-in husband, but recognized Linlin was too young to understand the proposal.
• Linlin worried that the Prince of Jin might someday side with a principal consort against Tang Zhuyun, and asked whether he would let Tang Zhuyun leave if she wanted to.
• Tang Zhuyun wondered why the Prince of Jin treated Linlin so well, and Xiu'er joked that Linlin might be the child of the prince and the eldest master.
• Nanxing told Tang Zhuyun that Ruan Anruo had returned, and Tang Zhuyun left with Xiu'er.

Tang Zhuyun tried to make Ruan Anruo break off her engagement by exposing her cousin’s visit to a brothel, but Ruan Anruo instead rushed to set the wedding date sooner. Tang Zhuyun prepared to make the impending marriage a spectacle, leaving the Prince of Jin and Linlin to follow and discover her plan.

• Tang Zhuyun told Ruan Anruo that she had paid Xiao Taohong to test Ruan Anruo’s cousin, and urged her to end the engagement after learning he had become involved with the courtesan.
• Ruan Anruo hurried home in anger, but three days later the Prince of Jin learned that she was still marrying her cousin and had moved the wedding up to a month away.
• Tang Zhuyun explained that Ruan Anruo had opposed her advice because she assumed Tang Zhuyun wanted to ruin her happiness, and announced that she would add fuel to the fire.
• Tang Zhuyun gathered Xiu'er, Nanxing, Yanran, and Song Jingyang, then exchanged a hundred taels of silver for six baskets of copper coins to draw attention to Ruan Anruo’s wedding.

Tang Zhuyun celebrated her scheme to marry Ruan Anruo off, while Tang Mingfan exposed a vast imperial examination cheating case and punished those involved. After the Prince of Jin strengthened security amid fears of revenge, Tang Zhuyun confronted Ruan Anruo and encountered Lüzhu, who appeared to have sought her out for a reason.

• Tang Zhuyun and her companions tossed money at the betrothal-date ceremony, and the Prince of Jin questioned her motives for arranging Ruan Anruo's marriage.
• Tang Mingfan submitted his findings on the imperial examination cheating case, and the emperor put him in charge of punishing the more than a hundred officials and hundreds of candidates implicated.
• Tang Zhuyun told Linlin she would support his wish to become an upright official, and the Prince of Jin ordered extra protection for both households.
• Tang Zhuyun went out to shop and was attacked by Ruan Anruo, who blamed her for ruining her life; Nanxing kicked Ruan Anruo away.
• Lüzhu approached Tang Zhuyun with a basket and offered to accompany her, prompting Tang Zhuyun to suspect she had come with a purpose.